Tuesday, May 31, 2016

Oklahoma is apparently a state broadly populated with fools and extremists, crazies and "fundies" (evangelical Christian fundamentalists), incapable of EFFECTIVE self-government, and inhabited by haters of the United States Constitution and of true liberty. (By true liberty, I mean ACTUAL individual freedom, not merely the illusory freedom to conform to unscientific conservative Christianity.)

Last Friday, OK Governor Mary Fallin vetoed legislation that would have made it a criminal offense to perform a constitutionally legal abortion.

Gov. Mary Fallin has been widely discussed as a potential running mate for Donald Trump.

There is talk of an attempt to override that veto, a vote which would have to occur by 5 p.m. this coming Friday when the lege in OK adjourns.

"I have not made a decision," Sen. Nathan Dahm, of
Broken Arrow, told The Associated Press. "That's what we're pursuing,
what we'd like to see accomplished."
He said he'll decide during
the coming week whether to pursue an attempt — the same week that the
Legislature faces a deadline to adjourn while grappling with a $1.3
billion budget hole that could lead to cuts to public schools, health
care and the state's overcrowded prison system. They've yet to be
presented with a proposed state budget.

Given that Oklahoma has a Grand Canyon sized budget hole, it is grossly irresponsible to waste ANY time on abortion legislation rather than focusing on the state budget. But of course, that is what the crazies, and the extremists, and the religious fanatics and the science deniers do, instead of doing their jobs.

It's not like OK doesn't have more than their fair share of other problems far more serious than a useless piece of liberty-denying abortion legislation that isn't worth a role of toilet paper in the legislative bathroom, much less the paper on which it is printed. As states go "OK" is pretty far from being 'okay'.

Perhaps the failed prioritizing of the legislature can best be explained by the educational failings of the state. Oklahoma is ranked among the lowest for education spending at 47th, both for K-12 and post-secondary education. Those 'Sooners' have been ranked down near the lower half for number of adults with high school diplomas (36th in 2004). And per Wikipedia:

In the 2007–2008 school year, there were 181,973 undergraduate students,
20,014 graduate students, and 4,395 first-professional degree students
enrolled in Oklahoma colleges. Of these students, 18,892 received a
bachelor's degree, 5,386 received a master's degree, and 462 received a
first professional degree. This means the state of Oklahoma produces an
average of 38,278 degree-holders per completions component (i.e. July 1,
2007 – June 30, 2008). National average is 68,322 total degrees awarded
per completions component.

Clearly, knowledge, and thinking, are not the priorities of the voters of Oklahoma. They're more obsessed with interference in the reproductive choices of women and their medical providers. Because apparently both voters and legislators fail to grasp that there are other things more appropriate and more important requiring their attention.

Tuesday, May 17, 2016

This year, from Joe Scarborough’s vapid attempt to characterize
the working class as “mad at Republicans for not keeping promises to reign in
the debt”, to Chuck Todd’s ludicrous assertion that the reason people don’t
warm up to Hillary is (mostly) about her inability to show her personal side, I’m
struck by just how dumb the political class is about what is going on in
America and about what is being thought about by most Americans.

Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump, one sincerely the other
more or less fraudulently, are gaining traction because of one key and central theme,
specifically the fate of average Americans. Sanders and Trump are speaking to people’s frustration at having spent 30
years (since Reagan) buying into a myth, and during that time have seen their
jobs leave, their wages fall or at best remain flat while costs rise, and the
opportunities for their children to get an education and have at least as good
a life, if not better, than they have, disappear.This has come about due to competition
with offshore labor, through attacks on the worthiness of work and was justified by/motivated
from the idea that profit for the shareholders is first last and always the only
thing that must be considered.They (workers) were
promised that by focusing on shareholder return there would be more and better paying jobs than those which left, and so more opportunity.It has not done
been true, not even close. That idea has failed, and
failed miserably.It has lead to greater
inequality as we destroyed overtime pay protections and most importantly cut taxes at the top end, motivating the very wealthy to seek and succeed in gaining access to a greater share of the
profits they would now got to keep rather than see taxed.

The bottom line is this, if Hillary seeks to defeat
Trump, a task which should be easy given the man’s enormous flaws, she MUST tap
into that anger.She needs to focus on
demonstrating that the DEMOCRATIC PARTY has defended the working class far more
than the Republicans, that the Democrats, not Republicans have repeatedly
opposed easing restrictions on moving jobs overseas, repeatedly advocated for
increasing wages, for making school accessible, making new industries (like
renewable energy) the focus of our new manufacturing rather than, as Trump
would advocate, reducing wages in stagnant industries so that US goods will be
cost competitive with goods produced by impoverished workers in Indonesia, the Philippines
or Ghana, so those goods can be sold in the poorest countries to the lowest
bidder.She must stake out the
difference between not just her and Trump but Democrats and Republicans in
terms of their recent history.It has
been Republicans who pushed the idea that corporate greed was good, even if it
cost people jobs.It has been
Republicans who push so-called “right to work” ideas that destroy union
protections and Republicans who protected corporations when they declared
bankruptcy to shed themselves of pension commitments.She must also show how her stance defends US
worker’s wages and looks to the future rather than simply seeking to chase 3rd
world countries down the rabbit hole of ever deflating wages.Last, she MUST call out the wealthy in this
country as having been unfair to those workers, allowing the US infrastructure
to crumble, for making US universities to have to make up lost educational
support by increasing tuition, and most of all, for not having shared the pain
as jobs went offshore.She must call
them out for pocketing trillions, and not paying their share, while the country
suffered and suffers.So, while I find the issue of Trump's contemptuous, demeaning and blatantly sexist treatment of women in his life compelling, in the end it is hardly the only or even most important issue. As Bill Clinton once said, "It's the economy, stupid." That's something Trump seems to get more so than does Clinton right now and that has to change or we're going to elect a man to the Presidency who has an orangutan stapled to the top of his head and who has policy proposals to match.

Friday, May 13, 2016

We see Oil Companies starting to relinquish their 'drill baby drill' grip on the more expensive-to- extract oil fields. With high inventories and low prices for an extended period of months, it has become cost-ineffective to extract that oil, which SHOULD be left in the ground, particularly given the fragile eco-systems surrounding them. We are beginning to see the key phrase 'stranded asset' appear, for example, in the context of Arctic oil drilling.

We see oil economy nations like Saudi Arabia announcing their plans to get out of the oil business over the next twenty years (or less). They clearly see the writing on the wall, that fossil fuels are done, over, finished, obsolete - and dangerous. As noted Middle East observer and expert Juan Cole wrote recently:

Saudi crown prince Muhammad bin Salman announced Friday that
Saudi Arabia would use its oil assets to back a $2 trillion sovereign
wealth fund. The move suggested to many observers that the kingdom is
preparing for a likely end of the petroleum business and transitioning
to being primarily an investor. While it is true that the money for the
sovereign wealth fund is expected to come from petroleum sales, it also
seems clear that the kingdom recognizes that it has a stranded asset
that won’t be nearly as valuable in a decade or two as it is now. It
could even end up, like coal, being regulated out of existence in many
countries.
Here are 3 reasons Saudi Arabia is likely making this massive change in economic strategy:
1. Climate change denial, which the Saudis pushed and helped fund, has failed.
A majority of Americans now accepts that humans burning fossil fuels
is causing global warming. And that’s in anti-science,
capitalist-ridden America. Everywhere else in the world it goes without
saying. Since the impact of global warming will become increasingly
apparent in the coming decades, likely pressure to abandon burning
fossil fuels will grow. Already, most new investment in power plants is in renewables, not coal and gas.
2. Another fossil fuel, coal, is being quickly phased out
and will likely be illegal in fifteen or twenty years. It is being
phased out by the Environmental Protection Agency because it puts out
pollutants, including CO2. The writing is on the wall for coal and
petroleum.
3. More affordable, longer-range electric cars are now coming on the market,
with the Chevy Bolt due next December and Tesla 3 the following year.
Most petroleum is used for transportation, so electric vehicles are
deadly to that market. The new generation of electric cars is less than
$30,000 in the US after tax rebates. And it typically can go 200 miles
on a charge. Tesla is putting fast recharging stations everywhere it
can, and people have already gone across the country in a Tesla.
Battery costs are falling and batteries are becoming more efficient, so
the writing is on the wall for the combustion engine. Consumers are combining electric cars with solar panels
on their houses, getting free fuel. Low gasoline prices won’t impede
solar car sales because prices would have to fall another dollar US
before EVs would not be worth it.
In as little as fifteen to twenty years, petroleum may be illegal in
some places; and will be in retreat everywhere. Saudi oil is a
stranded asset. So they are attempting to create a revenue stream from investments. As for fossil fuels, their business model is under severe pressure.

And we see economic reports like this one, which for those international oil companies that aren't being open about their awareness of the obsolescence of oil, that their days are numbered if they don't get out of oil, and instead get into something else. From Climate News Network:

Oil majors told to adapt or die

As
profits and prices plummet, the oil conglomerates – some of the world’s
biggest companies – have been warned they must change their ways or
face extinction.

By Kieran Cooke

LONDON, 9 May, 2016 –
At best, big oil companies such as ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron and BP
face a period of gentle decline, but will ultimately survive.

At worst, if they do not adapt and change direction, “what remains of their existence will be nasty, brutish and short”.

Present
management strategies within the oil majors have failed to deliver
value to shareholders, and profits are declining sharply, Stevens says.

There are parallels in the coal industry, and in natural gas. Like the 'olden days' of the 19th century, when whale oil became obsolete (and harder to come by) and was replaced by petroleum products, beginning with kerosene and progressing to other petroleum distillates like gasoline and fuel oil. Coal is dead; while there appear to be die-hards who cannot accept that change is inevitable, it does not change the reality that we have always evolved new forms of energy - including steam and gas in their heyday, which were then replaced by electricity.

This has been a key issue in the 2016 election cycle, the capacity to acknowledge the dead end of fossil fuel and the need to move forward with new infrastructure, new job training, towards cleaner renewable more modern energy. Conservatives can't or won't make that change; but if they don't do so voluntarily, it will be thrust upon them. Their only choice is how they respond to change, not IF the change will occur, or when.

Tuesday, May 10, 2016

But they do seem to be at the very least apocryphal. I prefer a definition for apocryphal that has always struck me as more satisfying, rather than the dictionary (or theological) definitions. That more colloquial definition is that if it isn't strictly true or accurate, it could be true and SHOULD be true, that the statement in question captures something of value and validity in spite of origins.

Obama’s Soaring Approval Rating Powers Democratic Optimism For 2016

President
Obama's job approval rating now sits at 52%. As the President gets more
popular by the day, optimism is growing among Democrats for a big 2016
election victory.

Here is Gallup’s Daily Obama job approval rating:
Notice a pattern? President Obama’s job approval has been a net positive for two weeks.
Donald Trump’s approval ratings have nosedived since last year. According to Gallup,
“Since last year, Trump’s net favorable rating (% favorable minus %
unfavorable) among all adults nationally has worsened, to -35 in March
from -17 in August.” Trump has a 70% unfavorable rating with women. According to the Harvard IOP Spring 2016 Survey,
Trump has a (-57) net favorability with 18-29 year olds. In contrast,
President Obama has a 55% approval rating with millennials and an
overall net approval rating of (+13).

Thursday, May 5, 2016

I will venture a safe prediction here. Trump will lose, taking down ballot candidates with him.
But in the highly unlikely event he wins the office of presidency, I predict his own party will lead in lynching him, via impeachment, right out of office, within the first six months post-election (and his VP with him).

What was it the failed governor and worse failure candidate Bobby Jindal warned the right? Don't be the stupid party?

Turning up the heat on right wing lies

Opinions

“Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'”

― Isaac Asimov, "A Cult of Ignorance," Newsweek (Jan. 1980)

We stand with PP

past wisdom

"I don't want to see religious bigotry in any form. It would disturb me if there was a wedding between the religious fundamentalists and the political right. The hard right has no interest in religion except to manipulate it."Billy Graham - Parade (1 February 1981)

An astute observation from Bertrand Russell

"Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones."

Penigma is pro-feminism, pro-thought

Ignorance is a choice

Just Do it!

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